More About Paul

Thanks for visiting my website. My manager and I look forward to working with you or meeting you after performances. On this page, I thought I'd tell you a little more about myself, and share a few things that don't usually make it into my biography. Consider this the "tell me more about yourself" portion of an interview, or where our conversation might lead at the reception after the curtain comes down.

Summer 2008: I just finished my first year in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where I set up a second home to be the Director of Opera Theatre at the University of Alabama. It's been exciting. I thought it would be a huge adjustment, but my life really hasn't changed much, other than now owning a car and a townhouse with a little garden (pictures at left). I still love New York, and am there often, but there is life elsewhere, I've learned. I love my job:  great students (who are getting work in apprentice programs and workshops around the country), terrific faculty colleagues, and I still get to sing and direct a fair amount on the road, armed with recruiting pamphlets, of course. I sang "When the midnight choo choo leaves for Alabam'" as a personal anthem this year. I'm collecting Alabama songs. One of my best friends gets married in Birmingham in May (no…I didn't make him do that. It just happens to be where his future wife is from, which means it's right down the road from me.), then I'm off to Iowa to direct The Gondoliers for the Young Artist Program at Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, then back to New York in July for intense dissertation work. Life is good!

Next, my last name.  Yup, it’s a tough one -- not your every-day surname unless, of course, you’re from upstate New York and even then, it’s pretty rare. 

My name -- HOUGHTALING -- pronounced HO-tail-ing, like “wholesaling” -- is a Dutch name meaning money master, or accountant.   It’s an old spelling, obviously, with lots of other variations, such as Hooghteling and the later Ellis-Island type shortening Hotaling, but my father’s family has spelled our name this way since the late 18^th century.  (The Microsoft Word spell check function offers "Hightailing" as a correction for Houghtaling, but that's not an acceptable variation, although I can move fast if I need to.)  I’m picky about the spelling and pronunciation of my last name (“Paul” has never been mispronounced, that I know of, anyway).  It’s my father’s name.

I have some interesting genealogical material tracing my father’s lineage to Mathys Coenradsten Houghtaling who came from Holland to New Netherlands in the early 17^th century and settled in Coxsackie, New York.  A few generations later, my ancestors wound up not far away in Albany, New York where my father was born. 

I was born and raised in Troy, New York, essentially across the Hudson River from Albany.  That’s where my grandmother on my mother’s side, Ellen Stewart, arrived as a young girl from County Antrim, Ireland, around 1905 and where my Dad, George, met my mother, Jean Henry (daughter of John Henry), square dancing.   I don’t square dance, but I did go to the 8th grade dance at P.S. #14 in Troy.   

Lots of people who've seen me perform in operetta ask about my twirling.  Umbrellas, canes, axes, whatever.  It's from Drum Corps.  My earliest memories of performing (other than singing "I am the Wee Falorie Man" in first grade with an Irish brogue!) were with the Avant Garde Drum & Bugle Corps from Saratoga Springs, New York.  I played all sorts of small-bore brass bugles (piston/rotary and then two-valve) and taught myself how to twirl a rifle.  My parents thought it would be a useless skill, especially when I dented their ceilings tossing the thing up in the air, but now people pay me to do it.  I get my parents comp tickets, though, to make up for the ceiling dents.

I’m a Yankees fan.  My father is a Mets fan.  We watch interleague games together by phone.  I wish I had been into baseball as a kid.   When I’m in New York City, I try to watch the Yankees at The Piper’s Kilt, an Irish sports pub in Inwood (northern Manhattan).  If you’re ever in New York, you should stop in and meet Mike, Tommy, and Jose, great bartenders. 

I have a cool family.  None of them sing, but they all cook, which I don’t.  My mother taught me how to clean a kitchen, which remains the only skill I bring to a dinner party.

Below are a few pictures of me and my family.  Thanks again.                -- Paul

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Contact Paul directly at  
paul@paulhoughtaling.com